The invention concerns the transportation, storage and supply of beverages, notably carbonated beverages such as beer and the like, to soft drink manufacturers and/or to the consumer. It concerns, in particular, a container, also referred to below as “keg,” for transporting, storing and drawing off beverages under the effect of pressure.
The invention thus especially concerns a keg for one-time use or a disposable keg and, in particular, a disposable keg for liquids under pressure, notably for beer.
To simplify matters, the invention will be described below with reference to a beer keg, but it is clear that this use in no way limits the scope and range of the invention. The invention more generally applies, in fact, to any liquid intended to be tapped from a keg, which tapping can then be carried out under the own pressure of the liquid contained in the keg and/or under the pressure of a gas introduced in the latter on the tapping operation, as, for example, in racking wine with nitrogen under pressure.
Patent FR-A 2,719,285 describes a container for fluid under internal pressure, consisting of the combination of a chamber for the fluid, an outer jacket defining a space with said chamber and a layer of a material filling said space. According to working variants of that product, the outer jacket and the material filling said space can be made of the same material and have a structure cast in one piece. Tapping of the liquid in that container can be carried out in the traditional matter by means of a plunger tube of known type, which contains the openings necessary for entry of the tapping gas, while the liquid drawn off is extracted through the plunger tube of said pipe.
According to patent EP-A 0,162,117, containers are known which are utilized as washable and reusable beer kegs, consisting of two halves formed by injection molding and welded together along a line forming a median peripheral line of the keg thus formed. The keg in question contains a plunging collar which constitutes a tapping pipe head support and which either forms one and the same piece with the upper part of the keg, and, in that case, all of the pipe head pieces must be forcibly mounted at the top, with the risk of deformation and loss of tightness, or is a piece attached and glued or welded, and in that case, the pipe head assembly must be mounted from the inside, before welding of the second half of the keg to the first half.
As for patent FR-A 2,776,637, it describes a container for one-time use with tapping pipe, in which the chamber for the fluid and the filling and/or tapping device present a monolithic structure. The pipe is not held inside the container. It is tightly joined to the neck of the container by fastening on the latter as soon as it is hot-stripped and under the effect of the shrinkage that said neck undergoes on cooling.
A need therefore existed for a container useful notably as a beer keg, having a simple structure in order to make it possible to lower its production cost and containing means for filling and/or tapping its contents. A need further existed for such a beer keg which could be a disposable keg, that is, non-reusable and the materials of which could, however, be recycled. It has now been found that these objectives can be accomplished, together with others which will become more apparent from the description that follows, thanks to a container for fluid, preferably for liquid under pressure, constituting a keg made of thermoplastic material and shaped preferably by injection molding, containing within its space an arrangement of means capable of making possible filling with a fluid, preservation and transportation of said container, as well as tapping of the fluid by pressurization of the interior volume of said container.